The invention is in the field of safety pertaining to equipment operation generally, and more particularly relates to training operators of mine equipment, specifically heavy mine equipment such as the large haulage trucks used in strip mines, to operate the vehicles more safely.
A study of surface mine injuries occurring in 1973 turned up 24 fatal accidents which were reported for that year. Of this number, half were caused by the truck leaving the roadbed and overturning, or backing over an embankment. Only one of the 24 accidents was classified as one in which operator error was not involved, and the circumstances make even this accident somewhat questionable. In that accident, a stockpile caved in on the truck. The details of the truck positioning and other factors are not known.
A sample of 410 nonfatal injuries disclosed that 85% of the accidents involved operator error as a contributing factor. Although clearly it cannot always be known whether a particular accident could have been avoided if there had been no operator error at all, with such a large percentage of human error-involved accidents, undoubtedly a major portion of them could be either eliminated or diminished in their impact with better equipment operation.
In addition to the obvious threat to the lives and safety of those working in the mines which accidents cause, mine efficiency goes down and operating costs go up as accidents require equipment to be taken out of service for repair. Another large spinoff effect is the inability of the maintenance crew to devote time to preventive maintenance if it is continually tied up in major repair projects involving trucks which have been in accidents.
Prior training of haulage truck operators generally involves the trainee riding along with an experienced operator for a few days after which he is put on his own, possibly with an instructor riding along for a brief period. It is a fact, though, that the majority of accidents of the type described above are caused by operators with less than a year on the job. This alone stands testimony to the fact that practical, increased efficiency through better training would reduce the economic and human costs of accidents.
Prior to the development of the instant invention, similar operator training problems involving equipment other than on or off-road trucks have been met by training and in a lot of instances with the use of simulators. Simulators are widely used in aircraft training, they have also been used or at least developed for training tank operators, submarine operators, and in other applications where equipment is expensive and the fallout from an accident can be disastrous.
While the industry would stand to benefit greatly from training with simulators such as are used for operators of tanks, ships, and aircraft, the costs of such simulators is well beyond the financial capability of all but a handful of mining companies in the United States.
It should further be noted that where such simulators have been developed, the number and kind of variations in machine capabilities and features is relatively small; there are only a few different models of submarines in comparison with haulage trucks which are made by approximately 12 different manufacturers, each offering several models, each of these models having an assortment of options. The value of simulation training comes in its ability to prepare individuals for the operation of their specific machines, not some generalized composite version of a haul truck which does not exist in the real world work place as would have to be created for the purpose of development of affordable simulation. The result of this has been the use of on-machine, on-the-job training, putting the new equipment operators directly into the work place to do their learning because of the high costs of creating for them, an appropriate, beneficial, controlled, simulated experience. The final outcome has been that training addresses only a limited portion of those work place events which could (and do) occur to mining machines and their operators.
However, as has been discussed, there is a definable need for mining machine operators to be able to handle the full range of work place occurrences that they will be exposed to if accidents and injuries are to be reduced and/or prevented, if mining machines are to be maintained in productive modes, and if mine production requirements are to be met. This means that training must provide equipment operators with the knowledge and skills to handle the experiences possible in the work place.